Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning

Great book, great read, nailed liberal fascist perfectly.. No wonder they’re on here criticizing it and saying it’s historically inaccurate. That’s all a liberal ever does with any truth. Sanctimonious hypocrisy, the essence of liberalism. #libereralismisfacism

There are a few things that we've learned as kids and have since taken for granted: the sun rises in the East and sets in the West, the birds fly south in the Winter, and north in the Summer, there are four seasons, seven days in week, etc. One of these truisms that almost no one questions is that communism is a left/liberal ideology while fascism is a right/conservative one. And while communism to this day has maintained a certain level of respectability and even moral high ground in some circles, labeling someone a fascist is the lowest form of insult, and something that many conservative thinkers are constantly subjected to. Therefore it came as a bit of a surprise to me to discover that fascism is in fact, when looked at objectively and without the baggage that it has assumed in popular perception, a quintessential left-of-center ideology. Granted, "Nazi" is in fact a shorthand for "National-socialist," but for the better part of last seventy years hardly anyone thought to emphasize the "socialist" part of the label, only the nationalism by which it was widely known. In the light of that Jonah Goldberg's book comes as a revelation that has profound effect on one's perception of the world. It is equivalent to discovering that the sun rises AND sets in the East. I was at first rather skeptical of the premise of this book, but the exhaustive, detailed and persuasive historical evidence that was presented in the book put all my misgivings aside. It documented many of the fascist tendencies and full-blown policies of some of the darlings of American left: Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt. It shows that aside from the extermination of Jews, there are hardly any policies of German National-socialists that differ substantially from any other socialist movement of the time, or even today. And herein, according to this book, lies the greatest danger for the modern western democracies. By demonizing fascism as a phenomenon of the right, it leaves open the unimpeded encroachment to many fascist policies under the guise of socialist and other liberal movements. These movements don't necessarily want the full-blown fascist dictatorships installed, but they are certainly progressing in that direction. That's why they are referred to as "liberal" fascists - fascists with a smiley face. Jonah Goldberg does a remarkable job of presenting his ideas and impressions to the modern reader - always backed by facts, never overdoing the rhetoric. The book covers somewhat the similar ground as the legendary "The Road to Serfdom" by F. A. Hayek. This latter book was written in the middle of WWII, and had some of the same perceptions as "Liberal Fascism." Its thesis was to warn the Western democracies against implementing many of the social programs that led to the rise of fascism and communism in Europe at the time. It is sobering to see that many of those warnings are still relevant today, maybe even more so than in 1940s. We live in the world where both fascism and communism are rapidly recede in people's memory, and it is easy to think that what led to them could not possibly happen again. "Liberal Fascism" is a sobering reminder that the road to fascism is indeed sometimes paved with the best intentions. One final note: many of the current-events books out there don't age well, and their relevance diminishes almost as fast as that of many periodicals. This is certainly not the case with "Liberal Fascism." The style of writing and the comprehensive historical references and examples will keep this book relevant for many years to come.

"Liberal Fascism" will resound with every anti-totalitarian Democrat, Republican, or Independent who has ever been called "fascist" or "Nazi" by persons on the left. JONAH GOLDBERG's book subtitled, "The secret history of the American Left" is a moderate but effective exposition of the history of the so-called progressive movement that has given us several presidents. Goldberg is a non-violent conserative gladiator who runs the sword of his penetrating analyses through the combative arguments and myths of America's liberals. I would like to tell Mr. Goldberg, "Jonah, you have written a whale of a book!" M Kienholz, a fellow author